


Reasons Why

by anneapocalypse



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, F/F, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Making Out, Making Up, Reunions, implied/referenced child abandonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: Blake is back, and it still doesn't quite feel real.





	1. Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moxuanyus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moxuanyus/gifts).



> Written for the Chocolate Box Exchange!
> 
> Prompt from guremahishin: _Blake/Yang: i really wanted blake and yang to hug it out when blake came back at the end of volume 5, and i wanted them to admit to all their feelings for each other and make up properly and maybe make out too, please make it happen, make my dreams come true ; o ;_
> 
> I sincerely hope this fulfills your dreams, Kaylie! I had a lot of fun writing it. 
> 
> This is set mid volume 6, after episode 7 specifically, and I have tried to stay as canon-compliant as possible while avoiding major plot spoilers.
> 
>  **Warnings:** There are some allusions to Blake's past relationship with Adam (hence the implied/referenced abuse tag), which I felt was important and unavoidable to contextualize Blake's running away, but nothing detailed. There is also mention of Raven leaving when Yang was a child.

_Blake is back._

It still doesn’t quite feel real.

Blake is _here,_ sitting next to Yang in a booth in the club car of the Argus Limited, rumbling through the mountains north of Haven.

None of it quite feels real yet. Not Haven or the Vault or the lamp or the train, not Ruby and Weiss tearing around the car squealing or Uncle Qrow trying to bankrupt the bar or Blake, here, at her side again, her amber eyes looking long down the car like she’s not quite seeing it at all, not quite here.

Maybe she isn’t.

Yang has to admit, she digs the new look—the jacket, the boots, the cropped black top. Especially the jacket. They’re both doing a long jacket thing now. It’s a good look.

She noticed right off the absence of Blake’s signature satin bow, her velvet black ears uncovered against glossy hair, and in that moment Yang first laid eyes on her in the threshold at Haven, heart seizing in her chest, all she could think was how stunning Blake looked, how—

_how she ran, how Yang could hear her boots striking cobblestone even through the blinding pain and lightheadedness from the blood loss, how she didn’t say goodbye._

Her name was the first word out of Blake’s mouth, and Yang stood there, frozen— _Say something, Yang, anything—_ until she heard Ruby call her name, and she had to run for the vault.

 

Afterwards… there was just so much. Riding the lift back to the surface, the lamp in her hand, bright gold and aquamarine and slightly warm to the touch. Yang only felt cold and drained. She’d wiped away her tears before ascending, squared her shoulders, steeled her jaw. And when Uncle Qrow asked about Raven, she just said, “Gone.”

_Not a lie, just not everything. Gone, a single glossy feather drifting to rest her feet._

 

She can feel Ruby giving her these looks. Eager, hopeful. _Everything’s okay now, right? Everything’s fine. We’re all back together, just like—_

Just like the past year never happened. Just like they’re still back at _school_. Sometimes she could swear Ruby doesn’t even feel how it’s different.

It’s so easy for Ruby. To her, the only thing wrong was that Blake was gone, and with her back—well, everything should be okay again. _That’s all that matters, that we’re all here together, right?_

Ruby’s eyes on her. Blake’s eyes on her. Even Weiss. Hopeful. _It’s all on you, Yang. Say the right thing. Say it’s okay, we forgive you, nothing matters, just as long as we’re together._

Sometimes it seems like nothing ever changes for Ruby. Like no matter what happens, what she goes through, she’s still the same. There’s a part of her none of it touches—bright and resilient, a rose under glass.

Then again, Yang used to think she was like that too. She was fire, she was light, she was the blazing morning sun, _my sunny little dragon,_ Dad always said. Nothing could touch her. And then Beacon fell, and her friends scattered across the world, and a piece of Yang was gone. More than just her arm, something she couldn’t explain, something ripped out of her chest, left hollow, and for weeks she couldn’t even drag herself from her bed.

It scares her. Even now it scares her. She’d never felt like that before, never had that _happen_ to her before, where everything felt so heavy, where nothing seemed worth fighting that weight on her chest. Where she didn’t even feel sad or angry most of the time, she just felt _nothing._

Weeks went by in that quiet, colorless blur.

She couldn’t even cry about it. She’d think of Blake, and there was just a terrible hollow ache, and she’d think, _I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care_. Why _should_ she care, when Blake didn’t care enough to stay.

It started to lift eventually, yeah, but for a while—

For a while there, she was afraid it never would.

 

It was Weiss who reached out first, and when after a moment of hesitation Blake ran to them, and Yang extended an arm, too. Letting Blake into their circle, a team of four, complete again. Yang’s hand on Blake’s shoulder, Blake’s hand resting on her back so lightly, so tentatively it almost wasn’t there. Like a shadow.

Yang forced herself to breathe, trying to feel something, feel the _right_ thing, because she wanted this, she did. Blake was back, she came back, maybe Ruby and Weiss were right and she always meant to come back and it was going to be okay, and—she just wanted to feel what she was supposed to feel.

Blake’s eyes could barely meet hers before darting away, and Yang had so many questions, _Where have you been all this time, why didn’t you call, why didn’t you write, why didn’t you talk to me, why did you just run away—_

But everyone was watching them, and Yang was supposed to be okay now.

So she hugged her teammates close, and the circle was complete again, but something still felt hollow in her chest, and Yang had no idea how to fix it or where to even start.

 

In the station, Yang tried not to stare at Blake saying goodbye to the other Faunus girl from Menagerie with the long chestnut ponytail. Ilia. _She’s pretty_ , Yang thought, and that tug in her chest wasn’t supposed to be there anymore. Even with Blake back from an ocean away, surely _that_ ship had long since sailed.

Blake and Ilia hugged, and Yang swallowed. Through the din of the station, she heard the girl say, “I wish you didn’t have to go."

“I know,” Blake said. “But my team needs me.”

Yang looked away.

 

Blake is quiet in the club car, hands folded in her lap, eyes lowered, only glancing up with a nervous smile whenever Ruby says “Right, Blake?” trying to get her to chime in. Ruby piles into a booth with Jaune and Nora, and they chatter about their journey together, stories Yang half-hears. Oscar sits with them, listening to the adventures of Team RNJR (or JNRR, there seems to be some disagreement on that point) with wide eyes and rapt attention.

Something about that tugs at her chest too, Ruby going off and having all these adventures without her team, without her _sister._ Yang can’t be mad at her for that, because Ruby was always coming back—even if Yang did miss her something awful in that quiet house under Dad’s watchful and worried eyes.

Seeing Ruby’s face at Haven, for the first time since she left, something fell back into place like it had never been gone.

She notices Weiss hasn’t said a whole lot about her time at home. She’s hanging over the booth over Ruby’s shoulders, listening to Jaune tell a story about some wild Grimm battle in an abandoned village. Weiss has her hands on Ruby’s shoulder. She’s laughing, and when her eyes meet Yang’s, Yang can’t help smiling back.

Another piece of the puzzle, another something that fell back into place when Weiss threw her arms around Yang in that miserable stinking camp. She and Weiss were never so close before, but now—well, Yang’s _cried_ in front of her. Can’t remember the last time she cried in front of anyone, even Ruby.

 

She’d hated to admit that there was still a piece missing. Maybe that’s why she was so angry. She wanted to be fine without Blake. They’d be a team on their own, RWY, so _what_ if that wasn’t a proper team, JNR were holding down a team of three—

and that was an awful thing to say, even to herself, because Blake was alive and kicking, and Jaune and Nora and Ren would’ve given anything to have Pyrrha back.

 _Why would I want her here?_ she’d said to Ruby, and she thought she meant it, and now that thought hurts too.

Yang turns to look out the window, at the white landscape flying past. Reflected in the glass, amber eyes meet hers, just for a moment. The mountains blur, a masked face and blood-red blade flash in her mind; Yang feels her good hand tremble, and clenches her fist.

 

They’ve got a nice four-person sleeper on the Limited. Bunk beds and all. Ruby is delighted, springing to the top bunk on the left so fast Yang expects to see a burst of rose petals at her heels. To Ruby, it’s like they’re back in their dorm again, only more exciting. Weiss takes the bunk beneath Ruby without question. Guess Yang and Blake are on the right.

So many nights at Beacon, she snuggled under her covers, thought about Blake sleeping right below her, and smiled to herself.

Now it just feels… strange.

Blake has a book in her hands, as always—Yang isn’t even sure where she got one, bought it at the station maybe—but she isn’t reading it, just looking out the window.

Yang flops on her stomach, kicks her feet in the air, and pulls out the magazine she got at the newstand. Flips through the pages. Her new hand is amazingly responsive, even with fine motion. So much it’s weird. It almost feels like it’s her hand, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like _her hand_ at all.

When she sneaks a glance down below, Blake still isn’t reading her book. Just staring out the window, a pensive look on her face.

Yang wonders why she came along.

Like, it _has_ to have crossed the others’ minds, right? At least Weiss. Blake and Sun just led a whole contingent of the Menagerie Faunus all the way to Mistral, and now her family are starting a new Faunus movement. (Parents she never spoke of, Yang doesn’t remember even once, and she _would_ remember that.) Blake has to have at least considered staying with them. Maybe is still considering it. Just because she’s coming to Atlas… doesn’t mean she’s _staying._

Yang can’t get her hopes up. She can’t. No matter how much she wants to.

 

Ruby and Weiss got off to a rocky start when they were first paired up, and spent an awful lot of time bickering for serious before it started to get cute. Blake and Yang weren’t like that, Blake was… well. She was quiet. Kind of a bookworm, definitely. Didn’t talk much about herself. Didn’t show a lot of feeling, unless something got her really worked up, like that stuff Weiss said (it’s hard to believe Weiss is the same Weiss, sometimes). Like that time before the Vytal Festival when she was on high alert for weeks, barely sleeping, terrified of what Torchwick and the White Fang might do.

Yang had thought she understood, back then.

She hadn’t known how _personal_ it was. What the Fang on the move in Vale meant for Blake, what and _who_ she was really so afraid of.

Yang knows now.

_A blood-red blade, a face hidden behind a mask, a voice low and bitter with rage._

 

Blake is back. And Yang can’t help it—she feels it fill in a piece that was missing, even as the ache in her chest lingers. Like the prosthetic arm that fills the space left, but cannot banish the phantom sensation of the lost limb, the tingle Yang gets sometimes in fingers that aren't there.

There, and not there. Real, and not real. Blake, and the shadow of Blake that can replace her at any moment, before she vanishes without a trace.

Which Blake is the Blake at her side?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Others have excuses; I have my reasons why._  
>  \- Nickel Creek


	2. Fire

Argus is chilly, but it’s a lot warmer in the city than out on the road. Absolutely nothing about this trip has gone according to plan and Yang is still bone-tired, but starting to shake the heaviness of the past couple days from her shoulders.

Food helps, trays piled high with sandwiches that they all eagerly devour. Being indoors helps too—and being around other people. Just sitting on the floor with Jaune’s little nephew flying his toy plane around and squealing with delight, while all around her is friendly chatter and laughter—it lifts Yang’s spirits a lot. Already it was feeling like days since anyone had laughed.

But they’ve made it this far! Argus. Not their destination, but a milestone. The last stop before Atlas.

Ruby and Jaune grumble about the cold. Weiss barely seems to feel it, and Yang’s always run hot, like her dad—he’d been in short sleeves in the dead of a Patch winter, cold fronts that blew in off the coast and all. Mom—that is, Summer—got cold easy too, Yang remembers, or thinks she does at least, remembers the velvet smoothness of their mother’s heavy silver-white cloak in her little hands.

Blake—well, Yang isn’t honestly sure what Blake thinks of the weather. If she’s bothered by it, she doesn’t say so. But she keeps her jacket on indoors. Once, Yang would’ve watched for a shiver, any excuse to throw an arm around her partner’s shoulders, to get closer, to feel Blake lean into her so casually, close enough for Yang to smell her hair, to see the light play off the texture of the fine dark fur covering her ears.

Yang makes flying noises for little Adrian as he swooshes his plane around, and he shrieks with laughter, waving his little hands.

“You like to fly? Do you? Do you?” Yang coos at him. “I like to fly! Yes I do! First class, baby! We have had enough of trains for a whole lifetime, yes we have!” Adrian nods sagely, and Weiss giggles.

Blake sits on the other side of the coffee table, and for a moment their eyes meet. Blake smiles, and Yang can’t help smiling back. Who could help smiling at this baby? Look at his fat little cheeks. And that smile. What a sweetie. Kids are the best.

She wishes she could redo that first hug, the hesitant arm around Blake’s shoulders. Gods, she misses hugging Blake so much. How can she be back and Yang still misses her _so much_ , maybe even more now since the color came back into things—since she started caring, feeling things again, first the anger bright and furious, then the sorrow she sobbed out to Weiss for the first time at Haven.

So maybe she hasn’t had time to feel it yet—how much she did miss Blake. How much she still does. Maybe she’s only just letting herself feel it now.

 

They spread out on the living room floor and the sofa like it’s a sleepover. They all sort of agree, without having to say very much, that Oscar should get a couch, and nobody wants to be the person who takes the other so Qrow ends up with it and he doesn’t argue. It’s crowded on the floor, bedrolls jammed end to end like that first night at Beacon, before the dorms were ready. The night they first met. Yang still remembers, kind of fondly, how determined Blake was to blow them off in favor of that book she was reading. _It’s about a man with two souls, each fighting for control over his body._

With so many of them crammed into one room, it gets toasty real fast. Yang sheds her jacket and still starts to overheat a little. There’s a sliding glass door at the back, leading to what looks like a little walled yard at the rear of the townhouse.

“Heyyy, Yang,” Ruby says, too nonchalantly, as Yang gets to her feet. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s all good. I’m just gonna get some fresh air.” _Not you too, Ruby. Don’t look at me like I’m going to break._ “It’s warm in here.”

“Okay!” Ruby says, her worries apparently assuaged. Even as Yang heads for the door, she’s pulling her cloak around her shoulders. Yang shakes her head, smiles.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of Blake in the corner, nose in her book. The same one from the train. Yang still hasn’t caught the title.

The cool air’s a welcome relief as Yang steps out onto the little wooden deck. It’s not freezing, not like up in the mountains, just crisp and refreshing, and she stands and enjoys it, letting the cool sink into her skin for a while before shrugging her jacket back on, flipping her hair out from under the collar.

It’s a pretty little garden back here. Green vines climbing a wooden trellis, shrubs and flower beds lining the wall, potted plants around the edge of the deck. Over the high stone walls, a few stars outshine the city lights, and the yellow light from the townhouse windows spills over the grass, mottled with clumps of snow.

The sound of the sliding door opening makes her turn.

“Hey,” Blake says, closing the door behind her, and Yang is immediately very aware that they are alone in the small walled yard.

“Hey,” she says, and then by way of explanation adds, “Just came out to get some air.”

“Oh,” Blake says, and her eyes dart to one side, and for a moment Yang thinks she might go back inside, but then Blake says, “Uh. Me too.”

“Uh huh,” Yang says.

Blake flushes, visible on her pale skin even in the moonlight. “I mean—I’m sorry. You left kind of suddenly, I just wanted to—”

“Check on me?” Yang raises an eyebrow.

Blake looks away. “I know, you told me to stop doing that. I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone if—”

“Blake, wait,” Yang says. “It’s fine, really. You don’t have to go.”

Blake’s shoulders relax a degree or two. There’s a pause, in which Yang looks up at the sky and thinks about saying something about the stars, or the garden, anything to break the silence, before Blake speaks again. “You… you said earlier that… you said it would be a while before things were back to normal.” She blinks. “Did you mean… things in general, or like… us things?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” Yang says honestly, and she doesn’t. The train seems like a year ago. “Probably us things. Maybe some of both.” She shoots Blake a glance. “What _is_ normal for us things, anyway?”

Blake looks down at the ground. “I—”

_Blake in the bunk below her, reading a book while Yang kicks up her feet and thumbs through a magazine above. Laughing until they’re snorting over stupid inside jokes in the dining hall. Practicing combo moves in the arena until the air is thick with the essence of their semblances blended—fire and shadow, a heady and clinging aura of smoke, both of them breathless for more. Whispering in their bunk while Ruby and Weiss snore across the room._

Normal things.

Blake trails off, and Yang reaches for something to fill the silence, like she always does. Like she always would have. Except—

except she doesn’t want to have to be the one to say it, this time.

So she looks at Blake, and waits.

“I—don’t know,” Blake says, finally.

Yang crosses her arms. “That’s it? You don’t know?”

Blake blinks. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I didn’t—” Damn it. That wasn’t how she _meant_ it. She just wanted—she just wanted to hear Blake say it, say _something_. _I missed you. I miss how we were. I miss—_

“I missed you,” Blake says, and this time it’s Yang who blinks, startled. “When I was gone, Yang, I—I really missed you.”

 _I missed you too._ Just say it, Yang. Say the right thing, make everything okay again. Isn’t that what everyone wants?

But she can’t. Not yet. Instead, she hears herself say, “Then why? Why did you leave?” And it burns in her chest, flares suddenly and uncontrollably and before Yang can stop herself, it’s all coming out, “Why didn’t you say anything? Leave a note, write a letter, _something?_ Why did you stay away so long? We needed you, _I—_ ” and Yang’s voice starts to break, but she can’t stop now, _“I_ needed you.”

Blake stares at her, wide-eyed, and Yang stares back, the gold of her hair reflected in the darkest part of Blake’s eyes, the fire in her flaring up from where it’s been buried, sunk to coals.

And for a moment, she doesn’t feel hollow. Even if what fills her is anger, even if it hurts where it burns so hot.

She half expects Blake to turn and flee, retreat to the safety of inside, where it's warm and people aren’t raising their voice and asking hard questions. But Blake doesn’t. She stands her ground, and holds Yang’s gaze.

“You really want to know?” she says, and there’s a slight tremor in her voice but her eyes never leave Yang’s.

“Of _course_ I want to know. You were—” And here’s what Yang never knows how to say. Because for all the moments they shared, all the hugs and hands held and late-night talks after Weiss and Ruby were asleep, they never gave it a name, never took it further. Never talked about it, because there was never time, and once Yang thought they had all the time in the world.

But she felt it. And she thought Blake felt it too, before…

Blake takes a step in closer, still looking Yang in the eye. “I was what?” she says quietly.

Yang takes a deep breath, feels that tremor in her hand, curls her fingers. “My teammate. My friend.” Blake’s eyes drop away. “And more than that.” Blake looks up again, and Yang finds herself holding her breath.

After what seems like forever, Blake says, “Can we sit down?”

“Yeah,” Yang says, “okay.”

 

They settle cross-legged on the deck. Blake pulls her jacket closed around her. Yang barely feels the chill, but can’t help wanting to wrap her arm around Blake’s shoulders.

“I left Adam three weeks before I started at Beacon,” Blake says flatly.

Yang waits.

“I left the White Fang. All of it. But mostly Adam. He—we had a job.” Blake looks down, fidgeting with the hem of her jacket. “A train job. I didn’t tell him I was leaving, but I’d been thinking about it for weeks. If I just had one moment, would I do it? Would I leave? For years I’d told myself I’d never do it. That I couldn’t.” Blake’s voice trembles slightly. “I thought even if I left him, I could never leave the White Fang. And as long as I was in, he’d know exactly where I was and how to find me.”

Yang feels her left hand tremble. Little sparks like needles under her skin.

“I kept thinking about ways it could happen, all while thinking it never would. And then… we were on that train that day, and he was on the last car, and I was one car up, I had my weapon in my hand and I… realized I could end it right there. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t have a plan. I was too ashamed to go back to my parents and tell them I was wrong.”

Yang things of the tall, broad man and the dark-haired woman with ears like Blake’s.

“I cut the car loose,” Blake says, her voice trembling. “I looked him in the eye. I said goodbye. And I left him behind.”

Yang’s throat feels tight.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Blake says. “It _wasn’t._ I’ve never regretted it. Not once. Not even—”

Yang tenses, but Blake trails off, looks away, sorrow in her eyes.

“Leaving him was the right choice,” Blake says. “It was hard but it was right. I needed a place to go, and I was already in Vale, and… I’d had this fantasy that I’d apply to school. I’d go become a huntress, make a life for myself on my own. ‘Course it wasn’t that simple. I had to submit a late application. Thought I was so smart, too, writing about my ‘combat experience outside the kingdoms.” Blake snorts. “In hindsight… Professor Ozpin had to have seen through me in a second. He knew exactly who and what I was. Most headmasters probably wouldn’t have given my application a second glance.”

“But he did,” Yang says.

“He did,” Blake agrees, quietly. “He let me in.”

Yang nods.

“Professor Ozpin gave me a chance at a new life. And then I met you guys, and…” Blake looks down, her ears curling. “You trusted me. You _wanted_ to be paired with me, in the forest that first day…”

Yang nods, because she did.

Blake’s fingers curl around Gambol Shroud’s hilt. “I always knew Adam might come after me. I always knew the White Fang might catch up to me. But then we _saw_ them on the move in Vale, and working with Torchwick, and I got really scared. And you… you were there for me. You were there for me when I was running myself ragged, when I couldn’t sleep, when I didn’t know how to slow down. And I felt like… like for a while, I could just be normal. I could go to school. I could have regular friends. I could just… live.”

Blake’s hands are shaking. Yang wants so badly to reach for her, but she holds back, for now.

“And then Beacon fell,” Blake says, her voice breaking. “And Ozpin disappeared, and—and Adam came back—and he _hurt you._ Because of me. And that just proved to me that I couldn’t have _any_ of this. That wherever I went, they would find me. _He_ would find me. And more people would get hurt.”

“And you didn’t think leaving without a trace would hurt any of us?” Yang says, trying not to raise her voice. “Really?”

“I—” Blake looks down at her hands, and her ears twitch. “I thought it would hurt you less than the alternative.”

“Which was what—”

“Which was Adam! And the White Fang!” Blake’s eyes meet Yang’s, bright with emotion, and then land on Yang’s arm. “Finding us again. Finding _me._ And doing something even worse to—”

“I don’t _care!”_ Yang bursts out, and her chest burns, but it’s not anger this time, not quite. “I don’t _care_ , whatever happened we would’ve faced it together! As a _team!_ That’s what we _do!_ That’s what you _promised_ us—” and she wasn’t going to bring this up, really she wasn’t, but she can’t help it, she can’t, it always comes back to this. “You promised you would come to us if something serious happened! And then you just ran away again! You ran away and left us! You _promised!”_

Blake’s eyes blaze. “That was different! This wasn’t a fight with Weiss or Cardin being a jerk! You could’ve _died_ , Yang, I couldn’t... ”

“Couldn’t _what?”_ Yang feels her own eyes burn. Knows they’re blood-red as her mother’s. But Blake doesn’t look away.

Blakes eyes burn too, bright in the moonlight. “I couldn’t _lose you.”_

“But you did,” Yang says, before she can stop herself.

And Blake’s eyes well up with tears. “I know.”

Yang stares, her heart thundering in her chest. She can hardly breathe.

“I know,” Blake says again, choked up. “That’s what I’m trying to say, Yang, I—I had some things I needed to do, but… I shouldn’t have tried to do it alone. I shouldn’t have left you like that. I’m sorry.” Tears slip down Blake’s face, and her velvet ears curl. “I’m so sorry.”

Yang takes a deep breath. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

Blake sniffs, nods, and wipes at her eyes. “Of course.”

“Are you going to stay? Or are you going back to the Faunus and your family? ” Yang swallows, and adds, “If you need to go, I understand.” Like Raven, she thinks fleetingly, Raven and the tribe, sometimes—sometimes people have older, stronger loyalties and that’s just the way it is. It’s useless to try and make them stay.

She just doesn’t want to be surprised anymore.

“No,” Blake says, looking a little surprised, but her voice is stronger than it has been since she came back. “No, I—I’m staying. What’s happening with the Menagerie Faunus, what my father and Ilia are doing, it’s—it’s important. And it means a lot to me. But I’m Team RWBY, Yang. I want to be here. With my friends. With you.”

After Yang is silent for a moment, Blake says, “You’re afraid I’m going to run away again.”

Yang wishes she could say no. That she could be sure about it. About anything. Instead she says, “I didn’t tell you, but I saw my—my mother. In the vault. I saw Raven.”

Blake’s eyes widen, and Yang sees the recognition instantly. “The one who left, when you were little. That you were looking for.”

Yang nods. “I saw her before that actually, it’s—it’s a long story.”

Blake nods. “I’d—like to hear it. If you want to talk about it.”

“Yeah.” She would, honestly. Forgot Blake doesn’t even know about the whole Spring Maiden thing. They have so much to catch up. Maybe later, after they sort out—whatever this is. One thing at a time. “All these years, I just… I wanted to know who she was. What she was like, where she went, but most of all _why._ Why she left us. I wanted there to be some big, important reason. I wanted it to make _sense_.” Yang shakes her head. “But it didn’t. She didn’t _have_ a reason. She just didn’t want me.”

Blake reaches out a hand, tentatively. Rests it on Yang’s hand, and Yang doesn’t pull away. “Yang, I’m sorry.”

“She wasn’t even happy to see me,” Yang says, tightly, blinking back burning tears. It still hurts. The flutter of wings in the cavernous space of the vault, that knowledge that Raven would never, ever choose her over anything or anyone else. Certainly not over herself. “I don’t know why… I don’t know why I thought she would be.”

Blake curls her fingers around Yang’s hand, and squeezes gently. Yang takes a deep breath and turns her palm up, lets her fingers wrap around Blake’s hand. It feels good. Warm.

“I’ve spent my whole life wondering why one person didn’t want me,” Yang says, and turns to look through the glass doors at Ruby, at Uncle Qrow, at Weiss, at all of their friends. She thinks about how she told Weiss, _You don’t understand_ , thinks of what Weiss has told her about her own parents. She thinks of the quiet house and her father’s worried eyes. “I guess… sometimes I let that overshadow the people who did. Who do.”

Blake nods. “Sometimes… it’s hard to see what you have right in front of you.”

They sit silent for a moment, hands clasped in the moonlight.

“Blake,” Yang begins, finally, “things are bad now. I know you know that. But I feel like they can get so much worse. And I’m afraid they will, before they get better.”

Blake nods. “And you’re worried that when things get worse, I’ll run away again.”

There is no answer for that. Blake said it herself, once. _My semblance is to leave behind a shadow of myself while I run away._

“I’m glad you’re back,” Yang says. “Blake, I really am. And I—I _want_ you here. I want you to stay. I just want to know.”

“I don’t blame you,” Blake says quietly. “But I’ve learned some things since I left, too. And I have a lot of good reasons to stay.”

Yang cocks her head. “Like what?”

Blake’s ears perk high on her head. “Like this.”

And Blake kisses her.

It happens so fast Yang doesn’t have time to think or take a breath, and with Blake’s lips on hers she forgets to breathe so long she has to pull back and catch her breath before kissing Blake back with all the force and fire in her, pulling her closer, and then Blake’s hands are in her hair, and her mouth is warm and eager, her touch no longer so hesitant.

And Yang feels tears burning at her eyes again, feels the flutter of Blake’s eyelashes wet against her cheek and then they’re wrapped up in each other’s arms and Yang shudders with sobs and Blake is shaking in her arms too, and Yang holds her tight, so tight. And Blake clings to her just as hard, and doesn’t let go.

“Just so you know,” Blake says hoarsely, when they’ve both mostly stopped crying, “that isn’t the _only_ reason.”

Yang snorts a laugh and wipes her eyes, and kisses Blake again.

 

“Didn’t expect that out of you,” Yang confesses later. They’ve moved indoors again, as the night got colder and Blake started to shiver. Back inside, and warm again, Blake’s slipped her jacket off finally and is leaning against Yang, who has her arm draped comfortably around Blake’s shoulders. Ruby is asleep already and snoring. Nora and Ren and Jaune are sacked out too, Weiss has her earbuds in and might be asleep, it’s hard to tell. Oscar’s reading a book, and Uncle Qrow is up looking out the front window, flask in one hand. But Blake is warm against her, and Blake’s hand is in hers, and for the first time it really, really feels like Blake is back.

More than just back.

Blake glances at her. “What? That I liked you? You can’t _really_ have missed that one.”

Yang laughs. “Nah. I hadn’t. I just—kinda figured it was gonna be on me to make the first move.”

Blake flushes. “I’m not really good at that, huh.”

Yang smiles ruefully. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Blakes says, squeezing her hand. “It’s really not. I should’ve known we needed to talk. I mean, I _did_ know. I just… I didn’t know what was the right thing to say, when was going to be the right time. Sometimes it seemed like you wanted space. I didn’t know if you even wanted to talk to me, and… even if you felt like that once, I wasn’t sure you did anymore.”

Yang threads a hand into Blake’s hair and strokes gently with her fingertips. Blake makes a noise not unlike a purr and snuggles closer, and Yang says, “I used to feel like we had all the time in the world, you know? I mean, we were seventeen, first year at Beacon… why rush things? And then everything got so crazy, and—it just never seemed like the right time.”

Blake nods. “I know what you mean. While I was back home, I—ran into Ilia. We were friends, back when I was in the White Fang. She got me thinking about… missed opportunities.” Blake squeezes Yang’s hand. “There were times in my life I needed to run. Adam was… Adam was bad for me, Yang. Really bad. I needed to run from him. I don’t regret that.”

Yang wonders what that means. How bad it really was. But this doesn’t seem like the right moment to ask about it. Maybe Blake will tell her one day. For now, she just squeezes back.

Blake continues. “But the longer I was away from you, from all of you, the more I realized… I was running from things I _wanted._ Things that were important. And if I kept running, I might miss out on something really good.” She looks at Yang and smiles. And Yang smiles back.

“I’d been away from my parents for a long time,” Blake says. “I wasn’t even sure they’d have me back, to be honest. We fought so bad when they left the White Fang, and when I refused to leave Adam. But when I went home… they accepted me like I’d never been gone. They weren’t even mad at me. I started to think… maybe I’d been looking at things wrong.”

“You never talk about your parents, you know,” Yang says. “I didn’t even know you had any.”

Blake shoots her a half-smile. “Do you… want to hear about them?”

Yang grins, squeezes Blake’s shoulders, and her heart feels full enough to burst. “I’d love that.”


End file.
